The document summarizes a student project to redesign the Prof-desk online education platform. Zoe Fisher and Erik Evangelista conducted user research through surveys and personas of teachers and students. They analyzed competitors and identified opportunities to simplify course creation and management for teachers. Their redesign focused on streamlining the homepage and teacher dashboard with minimalist design. Concepts and prototypes were created and tested to improve the user experience for online education.

1. Prof-desk
Design by: Zoe Fisher & Erik Evangelista
Student Project. General Assembly UXDI Winter 2013

2. About the product:
Prof-desk is a free online education service that allows teachers to create online
courses on a variety of subjects, empowering students from around the world to learn
new skills and improve on their knowledge. Prof-desk does this by simplifying course
creation and uploading, offering analytics and enabling agile feedback. Unlike other
course management systems, Prof-desk promotes student-teacher feedback and
simple teacher-side functionality. !
"
About the project:
"
Prof-desk was a student project; the aim was to improve the experience for teachers to
enable them to manage and maintain online courses. We were given the constraint of
designing for the Prof-desk website.

3. Process: "
"
.
Research
• Surveys
• Personas
• Competitive Analysis
Concepts
Rough
Final
• Rough Sketches
• User Journey
• Prototype
• Testing
• Final Prototype

4. Teacher Survey Findings
“Making the interface intuitive while increasing student engagement.”
"
• Making teaching material available
• Managing/monitoring student progress
• Due/dates and scheduling

5. Student Survey Findings
“Having online access to material is key… it saves time.”
"
• Important due dates & course information
• Organization of course
• Availability of teaching materials

6. Tina Celestino, 27
Grade 9 Math Teacher, Fremont High School
“I want to extend my teaching presence outside of the
classroom. With my limited time, I’d like to create
courses quickly and easily.”
Attentive
Tina promotes a
transparent and engaging
environment
to ensure her students’
awareness and well-being.
She ensures her students
know what to expect and
how to pace themselves.
Busy
As a dedicated teacher,
Tina has little time for
overhead. She
acknowledges technology
as a useful tool to facilitate
her teaching, but is
challenged by it’s steep
learning curve.
"
"
“I feel that seamless
communication with my
students helps all of us
succeed.”
“All my students are online,
and I should be there too,
but the system needs to be
easy to use and navigate.”
Opportunities
"
• Create a simple interface
that allows Tina to easily
manage her class schedule.
• Bring down barriers
between Tina and her
students through the
interface.

7. Competitive Analysis
Coursera
• large, clear browse bar
• related courses
Murally
Khan Academy
• minimalist navigation bar
• social media login
Dropbox
• simple content upload
• concise section of high
level content

8. Design Principles
• Concise and organized layout of content
• Engaging homepage content
• Minimalist design
"
"

9. Redesign of Homepage
Goals
`
"
• Modernize & simplify
• Showcase what Prof-desk has
to offer
• Create an engaging experience

10. Redesign Teacher Dashboard: Focus on ‘My Courses’
Goals
`
"
• Improve course upload
• Simplify course management
• Minimize content on
dashboard

11. Teacher Dashboard out of scope features
Menu
"
Dashboard
Profile
• Friends
• Favorites
• Chat
Account Settings
Students
• Grades
• Roster

12. Ideation & Sketches
Initial Class Concept
Sitemap
User Flows
From our analysis of the site architecture we discovered many opportunities related
to the teacher experience. We decided to focus on the teacher dashboard and
course content due to the importance of content found in our research.

13. Homepage Ideation & Sketches

14. Teacher Dashboard Ideation & Sketches

15. Course Upload Ideation & Sketches

16. Homepage Before & After

17. Teacher Dashboard Before & After

18. Scenarios
Tina’s first visit to Prof-desk
Creates course and
uploads most of her
content"
(Out of scope of
prototype)
Tina visits Prof-desk and signs up
She creates a course and
uploads content
Tina’s second visit as a user
Tina logs into her dashboard
and clicks to view her Algebra 1
course details
She inspects her course schedule
and decides to add a quiz

19. THANK YOU
Zoe Fisher
zoe.fisher3@gmail.com
"
Erik Evangelista
ejevange@live.com